


Just the way you are

by laceblade



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Body Dysmorphia, Fat Shaming, M/M, Sexting, although these things are no worse than the recent LOLI; literally a transcript is given for context, thank god for emily heller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 11:17:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15728307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laceblade/pseuds/laceblade
Summary: Ronan listens to the most recent LOLI and decides to remind Jon how attractive he finds him.





	Just the way you are

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to justlikesomuch and tearsforsourvenirs for being willing to beta this!
> 
> Please don't share or ever reference to anyone involved.

>   
>  [The rant wheel finishes spinning.]  
>  JON LOVETT: It has landed on “carbs.”  
>  [Audience laughter]  
>  LOVETT: I don’t know how we’re supposed to do it. How are you s’posed to not eat ‘em? How? They tell me, they say, ‘Hey! We’re gonna put you on HBO. You’re gonna sit next to Jon, and Tommy.’ And then I say, ‘Alright, calendar. Let’s do this.’ [Snicker]  
>  [Audience laughter]  
>  LOVETT: No carbs today; no carbs tomorrow; I ate a quesadilla half an hour ago.  
>  [Audience laughter]  
>  EMILY HELLER: I have a good trick for how to not eat carbs.  
>  LOVETT: How do you do it?  
>  HELLER: You eat ‘em whenever you want.  
>  [Lovett + Audience laughter]  
>  HELLER: And just be cool with being fatter than you used to be ‘cause it’s really fun and if you’re feeling bad I have a really good way of comforting yourself, which is: eating more carbs.  
>  [Audience affirmation, shouting, whistling]  
>  LOVETT: Now—  
>  HELLER: Not one single thing in my life has gotten worse since I gained weight.  
>  LOVETT: Every day, it’s me versus those fucking Cheez-Its.  
>  [Audience laughter]  
>  LOVETT: And it’s like, ugh, what am I gonna do, eat _mixed nuts_ for every snack? Like mixed nuts are the answer? Oh, I’ll have string cheese. Like _that_ helps.  
>  [Audience laughter]  
>  LOVETT: I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Just watch the days tickin’ down. And it’s always the same thing: ‘Oh, wow. Tommy and Jon are so handsome, and Lovett’s funny.’  
>  [Sympathetic audience laughter/moan]  
>  LOVETT: Who cares about being funny? I don’t. What’s it ever gotten me? …I guess _everything_. [He laughs]  
>  [Audience laughter]  
>  LOVETT: And then it’s like, also, though, it’s a little like, ‘I’ll just keep eating carbs, of course I’ll keep eating carbs, because the rules don’t apply to me; they never have. …And then I look down in the mirror, and it’s like, ‘Welp, stomach’s still there.’ Look at my face: still there.  
>  HELLER: To me, it feels like you’re choosing between, like, a skinny body and joyless eyes…  
>  LOVETT: That’s right.  
>  HELLER: Or like, a rockin’ face and just a little bit less of a skinny body. And I feel like the second one is gonna look better.  
>  [Audience whoops, cheers, claps]  
>  Lovett: COUNTERPOINT! I want people to think I’m sick. …Oh, what a deeply weird place to end the show. Is there anything else I can just say, quickly?
> 
> —Lovett or Leave It, “Instagram Your Corruption,” 8/11/18, 51:45-54:20  
>    
>    
> 

_There_ , thought Ronan, finishing his first take on the last paragraph of the Scientology piece for The New Yorker.

He was definitely going to rework it at least five times before he let anyone else read it, but after landing the last interview he needed yesterday afternoon, he’d stayed up all night finishing it.

He stood, wincing as he laced his fingers together above his head, stretching upward and letting at least five different things crack along his spine as he did. Sleep was going to feel so, so good.

Everyone else was settling in to get some real work done after their coffee runs and morning chats, and here he was, packing up his stuff to go home and brush his teeth and collapse. He was pretty sure he worked at least 40 hours per week physically within the office, but he worried how it appeared to everyone else. Everybody had to know exactly how much work he was putting into his pieces, his interviews, his follow-ups, his meetings with the legal department, with the editors, with the fact-checkers who had been assigned to him. They all knew he did more from home too, right?

He was too tired to care.

Smiling a little already as he pressed play, he slipped his ear buds in so that he could finally, finally listen to the last segment of the past weekend’s Lovett or Leave It. Ronan loved the rant wheel. It had started as a hyperbolic suggestion from Favs and Tommy. It turned out to be such a perfect segment that it was the only steady part of Jon’s show. 

Every week, for at least five minutes, everyone else could hear what Ronan did - the things that exasperated Jon, the things that delighted him, the things that disgusted him, all workshopped ahead of time, of course, so that he could use his perfect sense of timing to heighten the delivery.

As he walked, hands jammed into his pockets, sunglasses on so that people would hopefully not recognize him, his smile turned to a small frown. Jon started his rant by unfavorably comparing himself to Favs and Tommy, as if to say the other two were more handsome than he was. And then, the comments about food, the insinuations of failure. 

Ronan whipped his phone out, not bothering to consider what time it was on the west coast, or what Jon might be doing.

 _You undersell your handsome face, and I won’t stand for it._ He regretted the phrasing as soon as he sent it; this was the sort of thing Jon told him made him sound like he was 95 years old. Which, maybe he did. After all, he’d spent the first 20 years of his life utterly disgusted by everyone around him, reading books.

_You’ve been working out so much this year._

_Have a mountain of texts from you detailing every compliment anybody’s ever paid you about your body._

_Which includes a lot about your arm muscles lately._

_Every haircut you’ve had for over the past 12 months has been outstanding and you fucking know it._

_I love your hair. I love your curls._

He chewed his bottom lip, considered how patient Jon had been the past few days as he’d sprinted towards his self-imposed draft deadline, how he’d been the one who encouraged Ronan to try every potential source again on Sunday afternoon, because “Literally everyone’s available Sunday afternoon,” and had been right. 

Jon deserved a lot, was the thing.  
He deserved to know how attractive he was.

_You might have worn the same suit to Tommy’s wedding as you did to Favs’s but we both know that you filled it differently, even if it still technically fits._

_I love your calves._

_Your arms are so strong and you’re so tan from living in fucking California._

God, he missed Jon, even if they’d just seen each other a week and a half ago, at Tommy’s wedding. Ronan was still proud of himself for accomplishing the feat of attending two weddings on opposite coasts on the same fucking day. He _would_ be the perfect friend and boyfriend, damn it. What use were accolades and fame if you couldn’t use your money to be there for the people you loved, anyway?

Especially since Jon had still been sore about Tommy not having asked him to be a groomsman. He’d been moping about it for months, although he would never admit that to anyone but Ronan, not even Favs.

He usually felt pretty secure knowing that Jon was getting the constant attention he needed from his various friends in L.A. He also knew that keeping secrets weighed heavily on Jon.

 _You and your adorable smile,_ he texted, smiling just thinking about Jon’s face.

Then he grew a little more serious, and considered what he’d be able to do if Jon were with him right now, if they were together and close and able to touch each other.

 _God, your mouth,_ he wrote.

His phone finally vibrated in his hand.

 _I’m in a fucking meeting, Jesus._  
Good. He wasn’t alone. The texts weren’t just going out into a void. Jon was reading them. Jon was holding his phone in his hand, looking down, and reading the words he wrote. Watching dots pulsate in an ellipsis while Ronan composed his next thought.

He slowed down his walk a little bit, feeling himself start to get hard. He was still a block from home.

_Want to kiss you. For hours._

_you are a menace_ was what he got back for that.

He rotated his phone 90 degrees to expand the keyboard, swiftly typing. _Stop disparaging your stomach on your famous podcast listened to by hundreds of thousands of people._

He finally made it to his building, bounded up the front steps, and practically ran through the lobby to the elevator.

There were no cameras in the elevator, he was sure of that. The security of the building was something he’d carefully vetted before moving in. Given how much tabloids were willing to pay for candids of him, but also his need for physical security, he’d found a discreet building that favored old-fashioned security: the kind with well-trained people who were constantly patrolling the property.

Feeling fortunate to be alone in the elevator even though it’s mid-morning, he reached down to cup himself for the first time since he’d started getting hard, letting his eyes briefly flutter shut. He rubbed himself slowly, reminding himself that however alone he felt inside the elevator, his pants were staying zipped until he got home.

He texted Jon again. _They need to know that your belly is fantastic. So soft. So sensitive._

_They shouldn’t know how much you like being kissed there, though. Only I can know that._

He hesitated, and then smirked while sending what felt like seductive flame emoji.

 _This is sexual terrorism_ Jon replied immediately.  
Ronan smiled, imagining Jon in that moment. He saw him sitting in Little Marco, a blush rising on his face and his hand covering his mouth and his elbow on the table. He imagined him pinching his eyebrows in an overcompensated effort to hide his arousal.

 _Makes me hot when you get shy_ he texted, finally unlocking his condo and dumping his messenger bag on the floor right next to the door.

 _Wanna make you blush by telling you how much I love looking at your cock,_ he sends, tongue resting between his teeth.

He smiled at his bed as he started to strip. His phone lit up with another notification, but he forced himself to finish disrobing before picking it back up.

_RONAN._

He practically lept into bed, pulling back his comforter and top sheet to slide in, adjusted his pillows so he could sit up while still allowing the muscles in his back to relax.

Now, he could really get into it.

_God, I want to touch you, I want to suck you, right now._  
_Bet you’re so hard for me._  
_I’m home, I’m in bed, please tell me you left your stupid meeting._  
_Who schedules meetings for 8:30am on a Monday?_

_I DID,_ Jon finally texted back. _It was the only time I could get all these fucking people into a room at the same time._  
_Sorry the fate of my media empire is inconvenient for your inexplicable Monday morning hard-on._  
_Forget that, I’m horrible, I love you, please tell me in great detail every time you feel like this, every time you want me._  
_P.S. I’m in the bathroom now. Left my own fucking meeting so I can jack off to my boyfriend’s filthy texts._

 _I always want you_ , Ronan texted, and then also sent, _That’s hot_ , wanting Jon to know that he appreciated his abdication of duty in the pursuit of a mutual orgasm. What a guy.

 _If you think it’s hot, does that mean you’re touching yourself?_ Jon asked.

 _Starting to,_ Ronan replied. _I’m in bed. Did I mention I’m naked?_ He finally wrapped his hand around his dick. _Does your posing the question mean that you are? Touching yourself, I mean._

_yes_  
_so fucking good, thinking about you getting off thinking about me_

Ronan felt a soft smile spreading across his face, imagining poor Jon in the goddamn bathroom at work, trying to control his breathing but still panting all the same.

 _there’s a lot going on in here,_ Jon texted. _there’s a phone, there are hands, there’s a porcelain bowl full of dubious water waiting for me to drop the phone right into it._  
_It’s all very ideal._

 _We can stop,_ Ronan texted, smirking before he even hit send because he knew it would enrage Jon.

_oh, we’re doing this. It’s happening._

_I’m rubbing myself thinking about you holding your cock_ , Ronan sent. _Thinking about what your face is going to look like when you lose control._ Then, _I wish I could watch it._

 _well, that’s an image,_ Jon said.

Damn it, when was he going to stop cracking jokes and get into it?

 _I haven’t slept in 30 hours, and I want to fuck you so bad,_ he sent, forcing the focus of the conversation back to the matter at hand. _When do we see each other next, I can’t remember_

_three days_

_Three!_ Ronan wrote. Then, _I wish I could hear your voice._ That was the truth, especially right now. He knew he should feel grateful that he was the one who could do this in a soft bed, with guaranteed privacy and the freedom to be naked.

Unlike Jon, strapped for time and furtive in the bathroom.

 _Wish I could kiss you_ , Jon sent, and it was so sweet, when he finally said honest things like that, when he dropped his perpetual front even just a little.

_I’m calling you tonight. Whenever I wake up._

_That’s fine, but let’s finish what we started, shall we?_

_Oh yeah, this thing where we’re both panting, you’re biting your bottom lip and closing your eyes, jacking yourself off knowing I’m doing the same thing_

_fuck I’m so much better at texting with my right hand than my left_

_If I were there you wouldn’t need either of your hands._

_In this fantasy, let’s assume I retain all my body parts._

Ronan paused at the joke, giggling even though he didn’t want to. Jon always made everything so _fun_.

 _What, dismemberment kills the mood for you?_ Jon had sent in Ronan’s brief absence.

_I’m so hard, Jonathan._  
_I used lube for this_  
_Wish I could fuck you_

_I’d like that_ , Jon sent back.  
Then, _Always up for a good fucking._

Ronan’s breath had been starting to stutter, and now it broke off again as he laughed and exhaled at the same time.

 _I’m close_ , he sent.

 _I love watching you when you’re close_ , Jon said.  
_Biting your lip_  
_When you gasp_  
_When the come starts leaking out of your cock and then you start shaking_

 _Happening,_ Ronan managed to send just before it did.  
_Fuck_

He breathed deeply, closing his eyes and focusing on how good he felt, how good his entire body felt, how much he loved Jon.

 _Are you still hard?_ he asked.

_Needy today_  
_I came thinking about you, if that’s what you’re asking._

_I was hoping for a clearer picture of what your dick looks like right now._

Jon responded by sending an image. Ronan let out a quiet moan at the sight of Jon’s dick and hand, both wet with come.

_That clear enough for you?_

_Babe_

_I love you_

_I love you too._

_But I seriously need to clean up and go walk by people and pretend I didn’t just get off sexting in the bathroom with my ridiculously hot boyfriend._

_Fine, fine._  
_Just remember why this started: you are an attractive man, Jonathan Lovett._

_I need to keep these rants off-pod._

_It was funny; I got where you were going with it._  
_But it makes me feel sad when you feel bad about it._  
_We can talk about it more next time I see you._  
_Also, you are just fucking hot. Sorry._

There was silence for about half a minute, during which Ronan worried that Jon’s thoughts had spiraled too far down an anxiety spiral about food.

_So are some ex-Mossad agents going to see the picture of my dick?_

_Nah_ , Ronan replied, smiling. _Just the NSA._

_Oh, good. Great. Love those guys._

The phone didn’t vibrate again for over a minute. Ronan leaned over and set it on his nightstand so that he could find it again when he woke up.

Three days. He could wait three days to show Jon exactly how attracted he was to him. Some things were best expressed in person.


End file.
